U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that Chinese fentanyl continues to “pour” into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico — despite data at the northern border suggesting otherwise.
Trump complained on social media about Chinese airlines refusing to accept deliveries of new Boeing planes to protest his administration’s massive tariffs on China.
“And, by the way, Fentanyl continues to pour into our Country from China, through Mexico and Canada, killing hundreds of thousands of our people, and it better stop, NOW!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The latest broadside came a day after Trump publicly revived his desire to make Canada the “51st state” of the U.S., sparking pushback from Canadian party leaders in the final days of the federal election campaign.
In March, Trump slapped economy-wide tariffs on Canada, linking the duties to the flow of people and fentanyl across the U.S. border. He partially paused the levies a few days later, exempting products sold under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement on free trade (CUSMA).
Canada made over $1 billion in new border security investments and hired a fentanyl czar, Kevin Brosseau, to oversee multi-agency and cross-border efforts to combat the fentanyl trade.
Canadian law enforcement has also cracked down on fentanyl producers in the country, including three drug labs that were taken down in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland earlier this month.
The RCMP said while announcing that latest bust that there was “no evidence” the drugs produced in those labs, including fentanyl, were destined for the U.S. but would not reveal how investigators made that determination.
A recent Criminal Intelligence Service Canada report said organized crime groups involved in manufacturing fentanyl, operating mostly in British Columbia and Ontario, are actively engaged with Latin American drug cartels. While the report found involvement in fentanyl has increased by 42 per cent since 2019, it added those groups are also linked with American criminal organizations to traffic firearms into Canada.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has vowed mandatory life sentences for large-scale fentanyl traffickers if his party forms government in Monday’s election. Both he and Liberal Leader Mark Carney have promised additional investments at land borders and seaports to intercept the drug.
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Carney has also said his government would help Crown prosecutors pursue “more complex drug trafficking and organized crime offences” and allow police to search for and seize fentanyl in Canada Post mail with a general warrant.
U.S. data shows a tiny amount of fentanyl is seized at the Canada-U.S. border, amounting to less than one per cent of all fentanyl intercepted by American authorities.
The latest figures from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, released last week, show 81 grams of fentanyl were seized at the Canadian border in March, the second-lowest monthly figure so far this year.
Nearly 5.5 kilograms have been encountered entering the U.S. from Canada so far this fiscal year. The previous fiscal year saw 19.5 kilograms seized.
The RCMP has said there is no evidence of large-scale movement of the drug from Canada into the U.S., and the latest Annual Threat Assessment from the U.S. intelligence community does not mention Canada in its section on fentanyl trafficking.
“The Canadians have allowed a lot of fentanyl to come into the country. It’s not a defence to say more has come from Mexico because way too much has come from Mexico too,” U.S. Vice-President JD Vance said last month, claiming Canada wasn’t “serious about stopping the drug trade.”
Fentanyl seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border have also decreased, according to CBP data, falling below 1,000 pounds (453 kilograms) in each of Trump’s first three months in office — the first time since 2022.
So far this fiscal year, 3,039 kilograms of fentanyl have been seized at the southern U.S. border, a nearly 30 per cent drop from the 4,309 kilograms seized by this point in the previous fiscal year.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week there have been “successes” at the Canada-U.S. border, citing a significant drop in the number of people apprehended, but did not mention fentanyl.
Leavitt told reporters Tuesday that only 54 people were apprehended last month in the Swanton Sector of the northern border — which includes areas of New Hampshire, Vermont and New York — a “drastic” 95 per cent drop since March 2024. She said the area is a “main hot spot” that recorded more than 80 per cent of all apprehensions along the northern border during the 2024 fiscal year.
Overall, CBP data shows just over 500 people were encountered by U.S. Border Patrol at the Canadian border last month, a 65 per cent drop from March 2024.
The U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday it had sentenced an Indian man residing in California to five months in prison for operating a human smuggling ring bringing non-citizens into the U.S. from Canada.
The Trump administration has more recently said it wants to see the number of fentanyl-related overdose deaths in the U.S. to fall before the Canadian tariffs are lifted.
“I think autopsy deaths, as horrible as that is to say, should be the statistic that we’re looking at,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees Trump’s tariff policy, told CNBC last month.
Provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows fatal overdoses nationwide have steadily declined, with deaths related to fentanyl falling between 30 and 50 per cent in several states and nationally by 35 per cent.
However, the most recent data showed around 50,000 Americans died from fentanyl between November 2023 and November 2024.
, over 5,600 Canadians died from opioid-related overdoses between January and September 2024, 75 per cent of which involved fentanyl.
—With files from the Canadian Press
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